


protecting what is hers

by Areiton



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Pepper Potts, Canon Compliant, Canon Het Relationship, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Steve Friendly, POV Pepper Potts, Pepper Potts as Rescue, Polyamory, Protective Pepper Potts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:27:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22887067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: She protects Tony. That's been her job for so long she can't really remember what life was like before she protected Tony.But she can't protect him from the people he invites into his life, can't protect him from the people who hurt him, careless with his heart.ORPepper is done with trusting people who hurt Tony Stark.
Relationships: James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Pepper Potts/James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 25
Kudos: 356
Collections: IronHusbands, PolyAvengers





	protecting what is hers

**Author's Note:**

> I really love this [post](https://tonystark-616.tumblr.com/post/190930816207/eldritch-crone-in-the-avengers-pepper-invites) and wanted to explore the breakdown of Pepper's trust in the Avengers. 

The Rouges--what’s left of them--limp into the Compound, and she’s there. 

She doesn’t look at them, not Steve looking older than he ever has, or Natasha, pale and trembling or even Bruce because he wasn’t there, he didn’t  _ hurt _ them, but she will never forgive Bruce for  _ running _ . 

Heroes don’t  _ run. _

She burrows into Rhodey’s arms and they wrap around her, wrap her in the scent of sweat and metal and coconut oil and for the first time since the dust--she doesn’t feel like she’s coming apart. 

~*~ 

They aren’t together. 

She loves him. 

She loves  _ them. _

And she leaves, packs her shit and takes Happy to the West coast, because it’s too much. 

_ They _ are too much, loving them  _ hurts _ and she--

She isn’t a hero. 

She’s never been a hero. 

She’s just a girl trying to keep up with a world that’s been bigger than her since before she stumbled into it on fake Louboutins. 

She isn’t stumbling now, and her shoes aren’t fake, and the eyes of the world are on her and she leaves. 

And then a building in Switzerland blows up and the world--her world--blows up with it. 

~*~

She fucks Rhodey first. 

It’s one night when they’re waiting on Tony, while he’s busy with a pair of twins or the headliner from the band they just left, or something--she forgets  _ what _ because with Tony the details don’t really matter, there’s only an endless parade of expensive and beautiful and the only thing that’s  _ constant _ is Rhodey, patient and steady, never wavering even when he’s called away by duty. 

He’s patient and steady to Tony’s wild chaos, and it’s only after she’s been Tony’s PA for almost a year that she has to bail them out of jail because the pair of idiots strapped rockets to their goddamn cars and  _ raced. _

She fucks Rhodey first, while Tony is busy and his cock is big and thick inside her, stretching and filling her in ways she never imagined, his fingers nimble where they’re rubbing her clit, his voice steady and patient in her ear, filth and adoration and it’s that--the hot hungry thrusts and wicked pinch on her clit and his familiar steady voice pouring x-rated fantasies out--that makes her come. 

~*~ 

She finds the cabin in the endless weeks of waiting. 

There are a million things she could be doing--SI is reeling, the  _ world _ is reeling, the dust hasn’t even settled, the Rouges are back and larger than life, Steve keeps trying to  _ talk _ to her--and she sits in his bed, for days, hours ticking by as she looks at houses. She used to do this, when she was a little girl in her uncle’s cramped apartment, dream of a life she couldn’t reach, not then. 

Then it was just a dream, as sweet and temporary as the butterscotch dissolving on her tongue. 

Now--

Now she buys a house on a lake without blinking and the dream is that she’ll have her family there. 

~*~ 

She gets pregnant a year after the Decimation, almost to the day. Tony holds her after she throws up, when she’s crying and his tears drip silent down on her hair.

“Rhodey should be here,” she whispers, and his arms tighten around her. 

~*~ 

The first time she hears about the Avenger Initiative, there is still soot in her hair and she’s just fucked Tony for the first time. She’s still sore from it, her thighs red from his stubble, and they haven’t figured out what this  _ is _ and how it’s going to work--but she’s waiting when he comes out of the warehouse, and his face is pale and  _ wanting _ . 

He only ever looks like that, when he looks at her and sometimes at Rhodey. 

“What happened?” she asks, and he falls into her.

“They don’t want me,” he whispers. 

Her grip on him tightens, protective and possessive. 

“What did they say?” 

He tells her-- _ Ironman yes, Tony Stark no-- _ and her heart soars and sinks. 

They don’t want  _ him _ , don’t want to take him from her, and she loves them for that. 

She holds him when he shakes, and hides her relief in his hair. 

~*~ 

She reaches the Compound and Rhodey is already in surgery, and Tony is standing where she stood, where she and Rhodey stood, after the Mandarin and Extremis, when Tony went under the knife and she thought for a second--for a brief beautiful moment--that Tony would be done, that her days of  _ fear _ were over. 

She shoves that thought aside and comes to a stop next to him, and his hand finds hers. 

“Tell me,” she says, forcing steel into her voice because his hand is trembling in hers. 

He does. 

He tells her about the Accords and the bombing, about the kid and the fight and Rhodey  _ falling _ . 

He tells her he’s broken, that he’s paralyzed, that Rogers and Barnes got away. 

He tells her he’s going to fix it. 

“Boss,” FRIDAY says and she looks at him. 

“Go,” she says, "End this. I'll stay with him." 

He looks at her, gratitude bright in his eyes and she squeezes his hand and slips away as Natasha approaches. 

~*~ 

Tony is different than Rhodey. He’s a force of nature, a chaotic storm. She thinks that will translate into bed, into a wild rough fuck that makes her ache. She’s hungry for it, if she’s honest with herself, a desperate hunger that fills her up and leaves her gasping. 

It isn't like that, though. Rhodey is rough with her, treats her like an  _ equal _ , all heavy hands and bruising mouth and thick cock. 

Tony--Tony watches her with wide wide eyes, mouth open and hands reverent, and  _ worships  _ her. 

Tony is different from Rhodey and she  _ loves  _ it. 

~*~

"Can I talk to you, for a second?" 

She looks up, brushes strawberry blonde hair out of her eyes and stares. 

Steve looks beaten. 

Steve looks  _ whole.  _

"No," she says, soft. "No, I don't think so."

She turns, leaves, can hear Rhodey making excuses behind her. She's done making excuses. 

~*~ 

Steve doesn't come to the hospital when Tony has surgery. She hears later that he's in Spain, chasing the Ghost. 

Tony shrugs it off, but she sees it--the way hurt flashes in his eyes, sharp and stinging before he tucks it away and smiles. 

She hates him, in that moment. Hates all of the team Tony has chosen to love, because they refuse to love him back. 

~*~ 

She loves them, is the thing. Rhodey  _ and _ Tony. 

And they love her. It isn't really talked about. She's known Tony long enough to know that he and Rhodey fuck. So she isn't surprised, really, when she comes home and finds them together, Rhodey's hands in Tony's hair, his pretty cock in Tony's mouth. 

Rhodey grins at her and nods at the strap-on. "Opened him up for you, pretty girl," he says and she smiles. 

It's not the first time she's fucked Tony, but it's the first time Rhodey has played with her tits while she did, the first time Tony hung between them, shaking and begging, a beautiful mess. 

After he swallows Rhodey's come, and she's fucked him to one orgasm, after Rhodey's hot mouth coaxed him to a second erection, she climbs on him, and Rhodey's tongue traces over her clit as she sinks down, brushes where Tony is filling her and it makes them moan, both, and she flips her hair back and rides him, Rhodey's hands on her clit and Tony's throat, Tony's cock filling her cunt and his pretty noises swallowed by down by Rhodey. 

She falls asleep with Tony's cum slick on her thighs and Rhodey's fingers in her ass and both their arms around her. 

~*~ 

"You're going with them," Tony says. Rhodey is holding him and Tony is--his voice is slurred, his hands are shaking, he is so weak it  _ terrifies  _ her because she's never seen him like this, not even right after Afghanistan. 

She can still feel the icy fear that clutched her, when he threw the armor casing at Steve and collapsed at his feet, when she thought he'd made it home only to die, heart giving out from rage and grief. 

"We have to try this," Rhodey says and Tony nods. 

She doesn't look at him. She  _ can't  _ look at him. 

She loves Rhodey, more than words can say--but she hates him for this. 

She hates him for choosing the Avengers. 

~*~ 

She protects Tony. That's been her job for so long she can't really remember what life was like before she protected Tony. 

But she can't protect him from the people he invites into his life, can't protect him from the people who hurt him, careless with his heart. 

He jokes about his heart condition, but she knows the truth--it is fragile and precious and easily hurt and she wants to protect it, protect him, from the whole goddamn world. 

~*~ 

After Ultron and JARVIS, the Avengers leave. They were already broken, but Ultron shattered them, shattered the fragile trust between them. 

She doesn't care. She reads the expense reports, the millions of dollars in relief SI diverts to the Maria Stark foundation, the millions they use to build and fund the compound. She goes home to Tony, a wreck of grief in the wake of JARVIS' death. She waits for them to reach out--Bruce or Steve or Fury. 

Two weeks later, her phone rings and Steve's voice fills the line and she  _ hopes.  _

He's calling about a quinjet for the team. All polite and patriotic and earnest and she realizes when she hangs up, that he never once asked about Tony. 

She realizes them, definitively, that no one will. 

~*~ 

"Ms Potts. Colonel Rhodes."

The AI is unfamiliar still, even after all this time. She supposes that leaving six months after JARVIS died didn't help accustom her to it. 

She straightens and squeezes Rhodey's hand. It's been two days, since she arrived, since Tony left. 

"What is it?" she asks. 

"Boss, ma'am. His suit sent out a distress signal." 

She stares at Rhodey for a heartbeat, torn between the men she loves, and a small voice says, "I can stay with Mr. Colonel Rhodes, ma'am."

She looks at the boy, bruises on his face and eyes wide and Rhodey says, "Tony trusts him."

She nods and kisses Rhodey quick and fierce. 

She slips out of her heels in the hall, and  _ runs.  _

~*~ 

Rhodey isn't with them, when Tony breaks down. When he sobs into her chest and tells her about Peter's last moments. They're alone in medical in a Compound that doesn't feel like home. 

Rhodey, the steady patient one, the one who never faltered and never left, the only one she ever trusted with Tony's heart, isn't there. 

She holds him and lets her own tears fall into his hair and she doesn't tell him that it's ok or that the fucking  _ Avengers  _ will undo it or anything at all. She just holds him, while he sobs and she hates Rhodey a little bit, for leaving them. 

~*~ 

She loves Peter. 

She thinks maybe it's impossible to  _ not _ love Peter. Tony does, is helpless not to, even though she watches him try to keep distance between them. 

She thinks he’s scared, scared to trust again after the Accords and the War and Siberia. 

But Peter--Peter is sweet innocence and steely determination, and a goodness that she thinks Steve should have been but never  _ was.  _

He stays by Rhodey while she retrieves Tony from Siberia, stays by her while Tony is put back together by Helen and Extremis, stays by Tony while he heals and even when he’s sent away--she and Rhodey frown at Tony for it, and he avoids them for days--he’s  _ there _ , persistent and loyal and waiting, until Tony brings him home, and he  _ stays _ , his grin shadowed by what they do, that thing she  _ hates _ , but still sweet, still steady, still innocent. 

~*~ 

“FRIDAY,” she says, when she finds him. 

For a moment, she thinks he’s dead. He isn’t moving, a still cold form on the ground. She can’t move closer, can’t breath through her fear, and FRIDAY says, “He’s alive, ma’am.” 

The suit keeps her on her feet, but the relief is so strong she’s dizzy with it, and she kneels at his side, wrapped in red and gold an Ironman, and he blinks up at her, his eyes unfocused. 

“Did you come to my rescue?” he asks.

She did. She does. She thinks, fierce and protective, she always will. 

~*~ 

She shows him the cabin, once he’s taken off his IV and can actually stand. She watches as he stares at it, patient. 

“I won’t stay here, with them,” she says, and she doesn’t have to say  _ who. _

The world has ended, and she doesn’t  _ care _ because her world came crashing down in a field in Germany, in a Siberian bunker, and this--this is just the wreckage of everyone else catching up. She’s done. She’s  _ done.  _

“I won’t,” she says, and she doesn’t say--

She doesn’t say she’ll leave, even if he doesn’t. 

She doesn’t say she’ll leave, even if it means leaving Tony and Rhodey. 

She doesn’t say she thinks Rhodey is already gone. 

Tony touches the screen with gentle, reverent fingers. “When can we leave?” 

She smiles, and he grins, and for a moment, the world isn’t dusty and empty, and she can breath through the fury that lives in her heart. “The bots can be packed by morning,” she says. “And I don’t want to take anything else.” 

His hand finds her, and he kisses it. 

~*~ 

“You chose them,” she says, once. She’s pregnant, and Rhodey is in her bed again, but Tony is between them, asleep, the lines on his face deeper than ever, but like this, he is almost at peace. She wants so badly for him to be at peace. 

“I chose the world, Pep,” he says, gently and she knows. 

She does. 

But. 

“You left him,” she says carefully, “to follow  _ Captain America. _ ” 

Rhodey’s expression flickers, and she thinks he’ll try to explain it, the greater good, the immeasurable loss, the  _ reason. _

He doesn’t. 

He’s quiet and she says, softly, “I love you, Rhodey. But I don’t know how to forgive that.” 

~*~ 

Steve calls. 

After Siberia, he calls. She answers, once, listens to him babble, excuses and shitty apologies, and finally, finally, begging her to talk to Tony. 

She doesn’t say anything. She hangs up. 

“FRIDAY,” she says, and her voice doesn’t shake and she is so damn proud her voice doesn’t shake. “Release the footage from Siberia. Make sure Tony never knows.” 

The AI isn’t JARVIS--she’s young and viciously protective and very very much like Pepper herself. 

She does what JARVIS would never do. She obeys Pepper’s order. 

~*~ 

The first anniversary of the Decimation, she dresses in mourning black and heels, and stands next to Rhodey and Tony on a platform. 

The rest of the Avengers--the ones who survived--are there, and Steve’s eyes find Tony, over and over, and her lips tighten. 

She hasn’t spoken to him, since that morning right after, and not for years before that, but she can see the determination in his gaze, the way he’s gathering himself, and she thinks of that day, in Siberia, about Tony asking if she was there to rescue him, and of all the times she’s protected him before. 

She thinks about the backlash of public fury the footage of Siberia caused, how they stripped Steve of his title, for a time. 

Rhodey’s hand tightens on hers, and she squeezes it, before slipping away and calmly, easily, intercepting Captain America on his way to speak to Iron-man. 

She smiles, pleasant and her eyes are icy and when she turns away, turns back to Tony, Steve doesn’t move to follow, or argue.

~*~ 

Rhodey stands between them and their cabin, the little world they’ve carved from the wreckage, and the Avengers. 

She doesn’t realize it, not until she sees him sleeping on their couch, and his tablet blinking still, messages he’s answering, pleas for Tony’s tech and Ironman’s suit, and  _ Tony _ \--

She stares at it, for a long time. 

The next night, when Morgan is sleeping, and Tony is waiting patiently for her, she leads him back to their bed and for the first time in three years, she sleeps between the men she loves. 

~*~ 

The pundits, the talking heads, they call it  _ immeasurable grief and loss. _

She can, though. She can measure it. 

It is Tony’s nightmares and Rhodey’s absence and the grief of Peter, a hole that can not be filled, not even with the laughing child they bring into the world. 

It has a name and a measure and she  _ knows _ the whole universe is aching, but wrapped around Tony, she doesn’t  _ care _ . She wants to protect them, what is left of her world, always. 

~*~ 

She hates it. The suits. Ironman and War Machine. 

She hates it, and she understands it, because she wants to stand between them and the world, wants to wrap armor around her world and keep them safe. 

She can’t. She can’t do that anymore than she can expect them to hang up the suits and live at her side.

~*~ 

Steve Rogers and Natasha and Scott Lang talk to Tony and she watches through the window as Tony pours them drinks and argues, watches Scott grow angry and loud. 

“Who is that, Mama?” Morgan asks, all innocence and sweet and she smiles. 

“They’re people who hurt Daddy,” she says.

Morgan frowns, and looks out the door, distress clear on her little features. She takes a breath, “Do you want to rescue him?” 

~*~ 

She believed in it, once. 

In the Avengers and SHIELD, in Captain fucking America. 

That belief died, in the tears of a man left alone to his grief, and an empty waiting room and a broken lover and a shatter arc reactor and pale, bloodless lips. 

She doesn’t believe anymore. 

She only believes that they love her and she loves them, and she’ll do  _ anything _ to keep them safe. 

~*~ 

When the distress signals go out--she expects it. Just like she expected it, when Rogers and Romanov left empty handed, and Tony came to her, bright eyed and manic. 

She knows them, knows  _ him _ and she might hate the Avengers, might not ever be able to trust them--but Tony is better than her. 

He always has been. It’s what she loves most about him. 

It happens almost simultaneously, War Machine and Ironman and she looks down at their daughter, and smiles. It’s weak and she blinks back tears, but this--this is her only job. Protect her world. 

She steps into Rescue and goes. 


End file.
